Tarot Card ~ May 20

Fortune Cookie: Get to know in a much deeper way your nature as a magical Renaissance man or woman, and bring together all of your expertise and faculties.

No, he doesn’t look like Johnny Depp. Or Keira Knightley, either. So there.

We haven’t seen this card since… late November. So I guess SOME OF US might well need a bit MORE of a reminder about who we may really be. Eh? EH? So do try to actually pay a little attention this time. [And maybe I will, too. Maybe.]

As I’ve said before, this is a card so dense with information and direction, I hardly know where to start. So, as ever, hang on a minute while I think about it.

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Right! Thanks. Again.

First, I have heard some people refer to this card as the older, more grounded partner to The Priestess. Fine, fine, fine with me. But let’s go beyond that.

Some readers find that this card betokens a marriage alliance or servitude, but also mercy and goodness. Others understand it as indicating the making of a long term commitment or that a new, helpful guiding influenceis about to come into your life. So keep an eye out for that, especially if things have been more bumpy or chaotic than normal. [Argh!]

Anna-Marie Ferguson, creator of the Legend deck, sees The Hierophant in many postive ways. Some of my favorites are: a person with experience he or she is willing to share; a generous spiritual mentor; initiation; drawing security and comfort from one’s roots.

But also, feeling constricted by conformity to orthodoxy.

[Not THESE guys!]

You won’t find me negating any of those possibilities. But, still, I go in my own direction with a card as important as this. [Anybody at all surprised?]

When this card turns up for a client, I start off by reminding them that, in some Arthurian legends, Taliesin became Arthur’s magical helper after Merlin left the scene. (In some tales, Taliesin and Merlin stand together at the water’s edge as the vessel bearing Arthur departs for Avalon.) So it’s a card of magical assistance or guidance.

Taliesin was one of the great, archetypal Bards of the Island of the Mighty. As such [at least as I understand it] he was a shapeshifter and wizard; a wisdom keeper; a singer; a poet; a musician; and he brought all those abilities together as a healer; and a teacher; and a community mediator. Not to mention being the power behind the throne, for − in some of what I have read – you couldn’t lead a Celtic clan or tribe unless the Bards declared you were THE ONE.

So I see The Hierophant as being a kind of super, magical Renaissance man or woman, who brings together and uses (brilliantly) not only ordinary reality skills, training and power, but magical, spiritual, sacred connections and capacities as well.

This can also be the keeper of ancient and hidden and powerful wisdom… not a bad thing to be or to look out for.

One thing more. In the first Tarot decks created LOOOOONG ago, there was no Hierophant card. There was instead… The Pope. Why? Because, at the time, the Pope was The Absolute Pinnacle of Power and wealth, not onlymaterially but (as he was perceived at the time) also spiritually. At least in Europe.

So when the Hierophant shows up, I often say, “Ya wanna really grow materially? Devote a lot more quality time and effort to growing spiritually. For you, the two must go hand in hand.”

So:

Be open to the possibility of a very beneficial new alliance.

Seek for (or perhaps seek to be) a generous spiritual mentor.

Get to know in a much deeper way your nature as a magical Renaissance man or woman, and bring together all of your expertise and faculties.

Own all of that, and move toward your highest and best both spiritually and materially.